New York Daily News

LOOK AT HIM!

Blind victim, 96, fumes over health-aide thief

- BY CHELSIA ROSE MARCIUS and LARRY McSHANE

FOR EIGHT YEARS, Bernard and Florence Stoll welcomed a trusted home health care aide into their luxury Park Ave. condo.

After the worker’s Manhattan indictment for looting the couple’s coffers of $335,000, an angry and betrayed Bernard Stoll ripped into his traitorous ex-employee.

“He is a terrible person,” said Stoll in a Friday interview with the Daily News. “To do what he did to a 96-year-old man who is blind is unconscion­able.”

Winston Nguyen was arraigned Thursday on charges of raiding the bank accounts and abusing the credits cards of Stoll and his wife — even creating a phony e-mail account to cover his tracks, authoritie­s said.

Stoll and spouse Florence, 92, were targeted by former “Jeopardy!” champion Nguyen between 2015 and 2017, according to Manhattan prosecutor­s. He came to work for the couple in 2009.

After his initial outburst, Stoll bit his tongue when discussing Nguyen.

“As much as I want to expose this man publicly, I don’t want to jeopardize the case in any way,” said Stoll. “To go further into this thing could make it worse for us.”

Nguyen, 30, declined comment after his Manhattan courtroom appearance.

He was accused of grand larceny, criminal possession of stolen property and identity threat, among other charges, and remained free without bail.

According to prosecutor­s, Nguyen (photo) wrote himself more than $200,000 in checks from the couple’s bank account and used their credit cards to run up a tab of more than $100,000.

His duties for the Stolls included escorting the nonagenari­an couple on their walks, carrying their groceries and reading the online news to the blind Bernard.

Nguyen allegedly spent the cash on Florida vacations and pricey tickets to the ballet and Broadway shows.

An employee at the Stolls’ luxury Park Ave. building said Nguyen was arrested in the couple’s ninth-floor co-op.

Bernard Stoll served as president of the building’s board of directors for 31 years before stepping down in 2001.

His daughter-in-law noticed the strange amounts on the couple’s credit card bill three months ago.

Investigat­ors discovered Nguyen allegedly diverted the couple’s bank and credit card statements to his Manhattan home, and blocked creditors from calling the Stoll residence.

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